Nuclear power and the characteristics of ‘ordinariness’—the case of UK energy policy

This paper first considers why nuclear power has become unattractive to private investors in liberalised electricity markets. It then outlines some of the thinking behind current UK energy policy, which emphasises the centrality of developing a low carbon economy. It sets out the arguments, mostly based on the market failures of environmental externalities and inadequate private investment in R&D, for giving greater public support for nuclear power, using the UK as a case-study. The conclusions are: (i) Government implicitly regards nuclear power as suffering from non-climate change externalities that balance its climate change advantages, and thus does not give nuclear the same advantages as renewables; (ii) there is a case for limited public R&D support for long-term, radical nuclear technology; (iii) nuclear power will only become a serious choice for new private investment if it can become an ‘ordinary’ technology, and the conditions for ordinariness are set out.